Trends in DC's Digital Reprints on Comixology

A while back, I logged some week-to-week posts on DC’s digital reprint program through Comixology. It’s been a while, and their digital offerings have matured, so I thought I’d take another look at what they’re adding each week. Currently, they seem to be doing about 30 books a week. I might not list all the issue numbers going forward – if the 90s Superman titles continue moving forward at two of each a week, there’s not much value in listing each issue. But let’s take a look at this week’s, and let’s see where the patterns take us, shall we?

90s Superman: DC is following the 90s Superman titles (soon to be the 2000s Superman, as this week’s titles are from December 1999) pretty quickly, giving us 8 issues of the books every week. There’s a lot of material to get through, but that’s still an admirable clip. We may only have a few more weeks of this, judging by Action Comics (the one title of the bunch that doesn’t change its numbering and continues for a long while) – 761 is the most recent issue, and Action already seems to be in the digital library from 769 on. Superman, Adventures of Superman and Superman: Man of Steel have bigger gaps, though.

Action Comics 760, 761

Adventures of Superman 574, 575

Superman 152, 153

Man of Steel 95, 96

Arion: 11, 12

DC has been adding two issues of Arion: Lord of Atlantis a week for the last 6 weeks. There are 35 issues and a special, so there's a way to go before the series is completed.

DC Comics Presents: 75, 76

DCCP started out at a faster pace, but has been going two a week for a little while now. There are about 20 issues to go. Bonus: More Arion this week, in issue 75!

Guy Gardner: Warrior: 33

11 issues to go.

Huntress: 19, 4-issue 1994 series

We wrap up the Cavalieri/Staton ongoing that introduced Helena Bertinelli, and then power through a Chuck Dixon mini from 1994. Will Huntress return next week, or will we move on?

Justice League America (Bwa-ha-ha) 51, 52

This one has a ways to go before having everything available.

Manhunter: 34

Four more issues till it’s all there!

Mister Miracle: 23-25

This wraps up the 70s run – Kirby and then Marshall Rogers, it’s all there! (I think DC also recently wrapped the 70s Return of the New Gods run, too.)

Superman (Bronze Age): 233

This is an interesting one. The Kryptonite Nevermore cover – I’m surprised it wasn’t available before this. Will DC continue from here? Their 70s Superman offerings on Comixology are paltry.

Wanderers: 7, 8

This 80s Legion spinoff ran 13 issues, so we’re almost there.

Wonder Woman (Silver Age): 130, 131

DC has been making silver age Wonder Woman stories available, probably wishing to expand their catalog in anticipation of the movie. At this point the silver age issues go from 112-131, with a couple of gaps.

Swamp Thing (Diggle/Dysart run): 25

4 more issues to go.

Trigger: 5

This Vertigo sci-fi series lasted 8 issues. I don’t remember it at all.

That’s a pretty exhaustive look at this week’s offerings. Next week, I’ll probably just note new additions (what will replace Mister Miracle? The '89 and '96 series have already been collected, so we might be in for something new. And there might be more Huntress comics that haven't been reprinted yet, but Comixology has a bunch of them listed already, and the Bat-universe is so sprawling it's tough to search), unexpected omissions, breaks from the patterns, and go forward from there.

OK, here's a quick rundown of the DC's new old stuff on Comixology for this week. 22 issues in all!

We're still in Final Crisis mode, with the five-issue Final Crisis: Revelations miniseries by Greg Rucka and Phillip Tan being released here. It stars The Spectre and the Question -- aka former Gotham Central detectives Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya. I don't think I bought this the first time out, despite being a Rucka fan -- although now I realize that I was laid off right around the time it was published, I can see why I passed on it.

We also get the Final Crisis Sketchbook, Final Crisis Secret Files, and Final Crisis: Resist, starring Mister Terrific. At some point, I'm going to make a list of all the Secret Files on the service, and all the ones left to do.

Another thing that tends to get left off when a run is collected are the annuals. Here we have Steel Annual #2 (issue 1 is still MIA), Suicide Squad Annual 1 (the only annual from the Ostrander run), and Wonder Woman Annual 1 (of the 8 annuals from the post-Crisis Wonder Woman run, only 5 and 6 had previously been reissued).

We also get Detective Comics 394 -- skipping over issue 393, leaving it as a conspicuous gap in the run from 388-397. Maybe it's just been overlooked, but for now it's one for the gap list! (And since I'm there, I'll add Steel Annual #1, too.)

Horror-wise, we get four more Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansionissues (9-12), and two more issues of House of Secrets, 96 and 97. We should wrap up Dark Mansion next week -- it's only 3 more issues to #15.We also plumb the depths of pre-Batman Brave & Bold one more time for two issues starring Cave Carson, issues 40 and 41. What with the Cybernetic Eye and all, I'm surprised these haven't been released already. Issues 31-33, also starring Carson, haven't appeared yet. (These two issues are also consecutive from last week's Suicide Squad appearances; maybe next week we'll get some Brave & Bold Hawkman issues.)

And, finally, we get two more issues of the Dollar Comic-sized World's Finest (251, 252), chock-full of DC superheroes. The format ran from 244-282, and these two are only the third and fourth issues of the run being issued (the others being issue 250 and issue 269). Aside from the lead-off Superman/Batman teamup, each issue features Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Creeper stories.

DC's digital sale this week is all about Infinite Earths, with a particular focus on Infinite Crisis and various tie-in series. But all the JLA/JSA crossover trade paperback collections are on sale, as are Final Crisis and Identity Crisis trades.

Another week of classic DC comics on Comixology -- but only 14 items this time, and they all follow recent patterns, so this'll be a short one.

First up is another issue of Detective Comics, #398 -- featuring a Batman story by Frank Robbins and Bob Brown, and a Robin story by Robbins and Gil Kane. DC has been pretty scattershot about their Detective reprints from this era -- in the last few weeks they've included a few books in the 390s, but don't seem to be doing every one for some reason. (They skipped over 397, for instance, an issue with Neal Adams art.)

We've also got Wonder Woman Annual #2, building on last week's reissue of #1. That leaves four more issues of this title -- 3, 4, 7, and 8.

In horror, we've got the last three issues of Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion -- the entire 15-issue run is now online. And yet, not a single issue of Plop! has surfaced. Maybe soon...

We've also got two more issues of House of Secrets, 98 and 99. Issue 98 has art by Michael Kaluta and Alex Toth inside, and 99 has stories drawn by Nestor Redondo and Bernie Wrightson. I haven't snapped any of these up yet, but they're bound to be pretty.

And then we've got the anthologies. As I guessed last week, we get two more issues of The Brave & the Bold, issues 42 and 43, both starring Hawkman.

And then we get five issues of Showcase-- issues 13 - 16, and 20. Issues 13 and 14 are early Flash appearances, before he got his own title. The next two issues are the really interesting ones, though -- they both feature Space Ranger, a largely unused DC space hero from the 50s. (He and his shapeshifting pal Cryll get pulled out of mothballs once in a blue moon; for me, his most prominent appearance was in the giant-size Showcase 100 in the 70s.) And then Comixology skips the already-available 17-19 to go to 20, featuring Rip Hunter, Time Master -- sometimes star (and often, antagonist) of DC's Legends of Tomorrow TV show.

And that's it! It all begs the question -- did DC reprint those Space Ranger comics just because they were in the neighborhood, or will Rick Starr be appearing in an upcoming DC TV show? Legends of Tomorrow and maybe Supergirl or Krypton seem like the most likely homes for him.

Space Ranger went on from his Showcase appearances to have a regular feature in Tales of the Unexpected, and then Mystery in Space. None of those appearances seem to be on Comixology yet.

For their weekly sale, DC is focusing on Hawkman -- the Geoff Johns series, and assorted miniseries and odds and ends, are on sale for 99 cents a pop. The most tempting to me looks like the Legend of Hawkman prestige format mini, written by Ben Raab, with art by one of my favorites, Michael Lark. If only it didn't have so much Hawkman in it, I might be tempted. (The Tony Isabella/Richard Howell Shadow War of Hawkman mini is available, too -- I liked that one a lot when it came out.)

Reportedly, after the launch of Sputnik DC's editorial director Irwin Donenfeld assigned Jack Schiff and Julie Schwartz to each develop a space hero, one of the present and one of the future. So Schiff developed Space Ranger, and Schwartz Adam Strange. Their try-outs appeared successively in Showcase - Space Ranger's first - and the two got their ongoing features simultaneously.

Edmond Hamilton is credited with the scripts of Space Ranger's Showcase stories. Reportedly Gardner Fox was also involved. I've not read a Captain Future story, but it's my guess he was Space Ranger's model.(1) Hamilton had been the main author of the "Captain Future" series.

Adam's look and jetpack were evidently modelled after Buck Rogers's. The feature's use of a single planet setting may have been modelled after Flash Gordon's original use of Mongo and/or Burroughs's Martian series. Adam's trips to and fro resemble John Carter's.

Space Ranger was moved to Mystery in Space when Schiff took over editing the title from Schwartz. Their features both ended in 1965, but Schwartz was evidently fond of Adam and took opportunities to bring him back. After Showcase #100 Space Ranger next showed up in the Wolfman/Staton Green Lantern storyline that introduced the Citadel.

(1) The "Space Ranger" name had previously been used by the TV show Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" series of juvenile novels. Asimov's character was semi-modelled after the Lone Ranger.

In recent years, Space Ranger appeared in DC's weekly Trinity limited series, and also as a supporting character in Threshold, the New 52 sci-fi series. On TV, he appeared in an episode of Batman: The Brave & the Bold as one of the many heroes fighting/mind controlled by Starro, and was mentioned on Legends of Tomorrow as the star of the "Rick Starr: Space Ranger" books Prof. Martin Stein read as a child.

Any word on why we're getting this series? Any plans in the comics or TV for the characters in here? I'm enjoying reading it digitally--especially on a dark and dreary day.

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

Plus, we get all four issues of DC's Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, with stories by Dorothy Woolfolk, Mary Skrenes, and Jack Olek, with art by Don Heck and Tony DeZuniga... and, shocker, a text page in each issue written by Wes Craven! WHOA!)

I have no idea, Sensei. I just read the tea leaves after they're brewed.

(Or sometimes slightly before, since there's a google doc that Comixology shares that I somehow got added to; just now, for example, I learned that there are two series that were around in the silver age that will be making their Comixology debuts on Thursday. Any guesses which ones?)